


the devil if it suits you

by Lake (beyond_belief)



Category: Social Network (2010)
Genre: M/M, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-23
Updated: 2011-03-23
Packaged: 2017-10-17 05:31:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/173428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beyond_belief/pseuds/Lake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Of Tyler, and Tyler and Cameron, and Tyler and Cameron and Divya. At Harvard and beyond.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the devil if it suits you

Anger is often Tyler’s strong suit, or so he’s been told, but it’s mostly that some of his edges are rougher than Cameron’s. Not many, but enough that it makes a difference sometimes. Enough that, after they lose a race or he doesn’t do as well on an exam as he feels he’s capable of, he’s the one more likely to punch a hole in the wall, or smash a bottle, or any other number of destructive things.

Not that Cameron doesn’t have his own mean streak, but Tyler’s sure no one’s ever seen that side of Cam besides himself, and maybe Divya.

After Mark Zuckerberg steals their idea and calls it TheFacebook, Cam smashes an oar, but there’s no one around to see it but Tyler. Div’s stormed off in a cloud of _fucking Zuckerberg_ and _I’m gonna fucking kill him_ before they’ve climbed out of the tank. Alone in front of the lockers, Tyler kicks a dent in one of the metal doors.

“Ty,” Cameron breathes, and Tyler says, “don’t, Cam, don’t fucking go there,” and presses his palms against the sheet metal, cool against the numerous callouses and blisters over his fingers and palm. He needs to re-tape his hands.

Cam says, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen Div so pissed.”

“Yeah.”

Cameron twists the ring back onto his right hand, glancing at Tyler. “We’ll call Dad, see if he can’t get his lawyer to look at this for us. So we’re sure.”

Tyler’s silence is his assent, and his brother knows it. They grab their bags and jog back to PfoHo. Their feet hit the pavement in unison.

Divya is pacing back and forth in the hallway in front of their suite, waiting with an ugly look on his face. His hands are twisted in a copy of the _Crimson_. “We’re calling Dad’s lawyer,” Tyler tells him, voice a low grumble, “just let us get out of this gear first.”

Div follows him into his room, leaving the door open. “Ty, this -”

“I know it’s fucked,” Tyler says. The words are muffled by his sweaty, tank-damp t-shirt as he pulls it over his head. His pulse is still racing, training and anger and adrenaline all mixed. He drops the clothes on the floor and digs through the dresser for a clean sweatshirt. He can feel Div’s eyes on his back.

“Why would he do it? Did he think we wouldn’t notice?”

Tyler shrugs and frowns, turning back around. “Maybe.”

Div makes a disgusted noise and pulls out his phone.

“He’s not going to answer,” Tyler tells him. “He’s too smart to take our calls now.”

“I wouldn’t take our calls,” Cameron says sourly from the doorway, in sweats and a robe with a towel around his neck. He looks like he’d stuck his head under the faucet. “But make sure you leave messages. Come on, let’s call the house.”

Cam calls their father. Divya continues to call various numbers looking for Mark. Tyler browses TheFacebook in disgust, listens to Cam and Div argue. He does his own arguing, reads half the article in the paper, and then gets up to floss his teeth. There’s still a routine to follow.

Div leaves in a huff after they’ve emailed Hotchkiss the screenshots and information, grumbling about how he’d stay but he needs to study for a test he’s got tomorrow, even though he’s probably too angry to do anything but fail it. Tyler sinks down next to Cameron on the couch. He holds out his hands, and lets Cameron re-tape them.

“I don’t know the last time I was this pissed off about something,” Cam mutters. He rips off a piece of tape with his teeth. “I’ll call our housemaster in the morning. Maybe we can get in with the AdBoard.”

“Yeah.” Tyler hisses as Cameron’s fingers pass over a new, soft blister.

Cameron rubs a gentle thumb over the inside of his wrist in apology. Suddenly, Tyler feels too tired to keep pace with his anger. He sinks against the back of the couch with a sigh, looking at his brother. “We’ll make it right, Cam, won’t we?”

“We have to,” Cam says, and it’s like a promise. His eyes are wide for a moment as he leans his forehead against Tyler’s, and then flutter closed. There’s a ghost of warm breath against Tyler’s cheek as Cam repeats, “We have to.”

Tyler touches his face, softly, just the backs of his fingers against Cam’s cheekbone. Then he takes the roll from Cameron and starts to tape his twin’s hands. They’re cracked from the work; battered just like Tyler’s feeling right now, but there’s no time to let them heal. The blisters will harden to callouses, and the cracks will scab over, just as they have for both of them before, time and time again.

“With me?” Cameron asks, as Tyler looks at the clock and realizes they both really need to sleep. Four in the morning comes way too fast, and they can’t row on no sleep.

Their suitemate isn’t home yet. Tyler shuts his bedroom door so it looks like he’s in there, and climbs into Cameron’s bed. They rarely do this here - the beds don’t quite fit two guys of their size - but he’s worried that his anger will keep him up all night if he’s alone.

As if on cue, Cam whispers, “Sleep, Ty,” and so Tyler closes his eyes. He touches his toes to Cameron’s calf and counts rowing strokes in his mind until he falls asleep.

*

It doesn’t get better. It gets worse. The AdBoard refuses them. Cameron chases Zuckerberg across the quad as people stare. TheFacebook expands to Yale, Columbia, and Stanford. And most humiliating, at least in Tyler’s mind, is the President of the University completely dismissing their concerns and telling them to “come up with a _new_ new project”.

Even graduation is bittersweet, and Tyler stares off to the side while Summers delivers his address.

“We should be happy today,” he tells Cameron later, but without conviction. They’re standing in their father’s study back in the Greenwich house, each with a glass of scotch, having escaped the crowd of relatives and well-wishers for a couple of minutes. “Today, of all days, we shouldn’t let Zuckerberg ruin for us.”

Cameron’s mouth curls downward into a grimace. “Don’t say his name.”

Tyler stares into his glass. “You think we can get really fucking drunk tonight without Mom expressing her displeasure?”

“You want to row tomorrow with a hangover?” Tyler glares at him, and Cameron shrugs. “Hell, Ty. We just graduated from Harvard. I think we can get really fucking drunk.”

There’s a knock on the doorframe. It’s Divya, looking more relaxed than Tyler’s seen him in weeks in a white polo and khakis. A glass of champagne dangles from his fingers. “Your mom’s wondering where you are, dudes.”

“We’re contemplating our post-Harvard future,” Cameron replies. “When do you have to get back to Queens?”

Div shrugs. “I should probably go soon.”

“Want another drink first?”

“No, I’ve got to drive.” From his pocket, his phone dings with a message. “And that’ll be my dad, asking if I’m coming home today at all. Sorry, guys, I’d love to stay tonight and save you from your cheek-pinching aunts.”

“It’s cool,” Tyler assures him. “Go. Drive safe. We’ll see you in England, yeah?”

“Looking forward to it, brother,” Div replies with a smile. Tyler misses him already.

Div pulls him in for a hug, and then does the same to Cam. It feels a little bit like the end of an era. Harvard is done. No more classes, no more post-practice PfoHo breakfasts, no more Porcellian parties on the weekend.

Tyler tosses back the rest of his scotch, and they walk Div to the front door. Past their parents, so now they’re going to have to go back to the party full of family members and old friends and old crew teammates, and smile and look like they’re having a good time. And they should be having a good time, not worrying about stupid Mark Zuckerberg and his fucking website.

“We should be having a good time,” he tells Cameron.

“You don’t need to remind me.”

Out on the driveway, Div waves and gets into his car. Cameron shuts the door and looks at Tyler. “Tonight, I -” he says, and Tyler says quietly, “yes,” and that’s all.

Tyler goes to his own room at the end of the night, after everyone’s taken off for their own homes and they’ve helped their parents clean up all the half-empty cups of beer and soda and thrown out what’s left of the taco dip and the veggie tray.

He’s just stripped off his suit and changed into a worn pair of pajama pants when Cameron says behind him, “Don’t you feel aimless? I feel like I don’t know what to do with myself,” and Tyler spins around.

“God, if I’d known you were coming in here so fast, I wouldn’t have bothered to get dressed.”

This isn’t something they do often. In high school, it had been about experimentation. A handful of times on campus - there were always, always girlfriends, or at least girls to hook up with. Cam shuts the door and strides across the room, uses his elbows and knees to knock Tyler onto the bed. Tyler lets himself be tackled down, of course, sliding his hands into Cam’s hair and holding on.

“No, I don’t know,” he says, answering Cam’s earlier statement.

“At least we’ve got races,” Cam sighs against his neck.

They also have to train tomorrow afternoon. Tyler is already dreading waking up at dawn to drive back to Boston. Today had been a day free from rowing, but they’re still considered part of the Harvard team until the end of the season. It’s a three and a half hour drive and practice has been scheduled to start late to allow the graduated students some extra time to get back to campus, but Tyler knows that means they’ll go long and hard the whole rest of the day, and tomorrow night they’ll sleep like the dead.

One day out of the boat is - it’s not great, but it’s all right. Two days out of the boat is unthinkable.

“Olympics,” he breathes in Cameron’s ear, and it works just like it always does; Cam shudders against him and bites at his mouth, and Tyler pulls at his hair as Cam works a hand down in between them. .

*

“You know what I think I’d cherish more than watching him write a us a check?” Tyler asks, sprawled on his back on the couch in the living room of the ridiculously posh apartment they’re renting for the summer.

“Watching him suck your dick?” Cameron asks.

“Watching him suck my dick,” Tyler agrees with a lazy smile. He spins the wineglass between his fingers, slowly, so that the wine doesn’t slosh out everywhere.

“That’s so fucking dirty.” But Cam doesn’t sound disgusted. He sounds like he’s picturing it, and that makes Tyler laugh. God, if their friends only knew how Cameron’s mind truly worked.

Tyler wriggles on the couch and flings his free hand downward to find Cameron on the floor, also sprawled in a lazy splay of suntanned limbs. He pinches the inside of Cam’s thigh. “Putting him in his place would be satisfying, you have to admit.”

“Most people wouldn’t want to put Zuckerberg in his place with their cock,” Cam laughs. “‘s there anything left in that last bottle? You look. I don’t want to get up to look.”

Tyler twists part of the way around and squints at the collection on the side table. “Gone.”

“Damn.”

He props himself up partway on his elbows. His head is spinning. “Wait, where’s the rest of the party?”

“Gone home.”

“Really?”

Cameron laughs again, the sound full and rich. “Yeah, Ty. Left like half an hour ago, but you’ve been all passed out up there.”

“I have not,” Tyler mutters, but he doesn’t remember much of the last couple hours, so it’s probably true.

It’s quiet for a few minutes. Then Cam says, “Are you too drunk to fuck me?”

“Probably,” Tyler sighs. He can’t really tell if his body is interested or not; that’s how much he’s had to drink tonight. “We could find out, though.”

They discover he’s not too drunk, and neither is Cam. It’s weird, being alone, and Tyler says as much while he arches his back, trying to get more of Cam’s fingers inside him. This is as alone as they’ve been in years.

Cameron breathes something that might be an affirmative against his collarbone. Tyler digs his heel into the back of Cam’s knee, hands closing slick with sweat on his brother’s shoulders.

*

They lose at Henley. Facebook expands, to Cambridge and Oxford and the London School of Economics. For about thirty seconds, Tyler’s not sure which is worse. Then he overrides the urge to kick the legs out from under Cameron’s chair, and snarls that it’s time. Time to sue Mark Zuckerberg in _federal court_.

He can read Cameron’s reluctance even as Cam agrees.

*

“You stole our idea,” he says to Zuckerberg, at the first deposition.

“You can’t steal an idea. You can only steal the execution,” Zuckerberg replies, before his lawyer can interrupt and stop him, that same exasperated _”Mark”_ he’s been using at least once every half-hour since nine o’clock this morning.

“And I didn’t steal your execution,” Zuckerberg continues, looking at them with narrowed eyes, like this is all just too much trouble for him.

“Bullshit,” Tyler hisses, as Gage says, “Gentlemen, please!” in a sharp tone.

Divya kicks him under the table. Tyler wonders if half-past two is too early in the afternoon to want a drink.

*

“How is he still so infuriating four years after the fact?” Divya asks two hours later, slamming his glass down on the bar.

Tyler yanks his tie loose, snapping, “Because he is.”

Cam is slumped backwards, body pressed hard against the back of the bar chair. “What he said, the whole idea and execution thing -”

“ _No_ ,” Tyler growls. “Don’t even go there. _We_ invented Facebook.”

The look Cameron gives him is pure exhaustion. Like he’s already tired of this argument.

“Guys,” and that’s Divya’s warning tone, “you do know we’ve just barely gotten started with this, right? There’s a shitload more to go. This is like - you’re only a hundred yards in, all right?”

Cam’s head turns to glare at him. “We don’t need your racing metaphors, Div.”

“I think you’re missing the point, Cam.”

“Enlighten me.”

Tyler flags down the bartender for another, and then another.

Later, as they stumble out of the cab in front of Divya’s hotel, Cameron slurs, “‘member when this was about - about - girls, ‘n hookups, ‘n getting fucked?”

“Don’t you mean it was about finding girls who would let us fuck them?” Tyler says sharply, and Divya looks at them sort of sideways.

“Same thing,” Cameron sighs. He slumps against the wall as Div jabs the elevator button.

Tyler rolls his eyes and mutters, “A dating website.”

“Girls wanna go with guys who go to Harvard.” Cameron laughs mockingly as he says it, sliding against the polished stone of the wall. Tyler doesn’t remember the last time he saw his brother this drunk. He’s pretty wasted himself, but Cameron can’t even _focus_.

“C’mon, dude.” Divya wraps an arm around Cam’s waist and yanks him into the elevator, and Tyler follows behind. He realizes, slowly, that Div is much more sober than they are.

“There’s two beds in my room,” Div continues, still holding on to Cameron, keeping him upright. “Jesus, Cam, how many shots did you do?”

Tyler leans his cheek against the wall of the elevator. It’s cool against his skin. He hears Cameron mumble something, then Div’s laughter echoing in the small space.

“Ty,” one of them says, and a hand curls around his wrist, and maybe he is as drunk as Cameron is, because he can see their three shapes reflected in the shiny metal doors but he’s not sure which one is him, and which is Cameron. He can make out Div’s darker head, and then the chin belonging to that head hooks over his shoulder, hands pushing at his arm. “Ty,” Div says. “C’mon, my room, c’mon.”

The doors slide open, ruining their reflections, and Tyler’s foggy contemplation.

He takes over holding Cameron up as Divya fishes in his wallet for the keycard, swipes it the wrong way twice before the door opens. The room is dark until Div switches on the bathroom light. He adjusts the door so that it’s enough to see by, but not so strong that Tyler wants to turn his face away.

He tries to dump Cam onto one of the beds. Cameron clings to him. Even drunk out of his mind, he’s still strong. “Let go of me,” Tyler protests. “Hey, let go.”

Cameron just growls and yanks him down. Tyler scrabbles for his brother’s wrists, trying to pull his hands away from Tyler’s clothes, make him let go. “Hey. Div is _right there_.” He glances over his shoulder and Divya is indeed staring at them, hands frozen on his tie.

Cam just laughs, mumbling, “He must know by now, Ty.”

Tyler jams his knee hard into Cameron’s hip, as fear pools in his stomach. “Shut up,” he hisses under his breath. He manages to wrestle free and Cameron falls back onto the pillows, still laughing.

Tyler sits on the edge of the bed and takes off his shoes. Div still hasn’t moved. “You okay?” Tyler asks him, and Div startles, his hands resuming work on his tie. But his gaze stays on them. There’s something different in it, something Tyler’s not sure he’s ever seen before.

Behind him, Cameron sort of twitches. Tyler figures he’s passed out.

“I did wonder,” Divya says quietly.

“You wondered - what, exactly?”

Div walks toward him. He kicks Tyler’s foot. Then he shrugs and nods towards Cameron.

Tyler rolls his shoulders, back first, and then forward. He tips his neck side-to-side, feeling the vertebrae pop. He looks steadily at Divya in the low light.

Div lifts an eyebrow as he slides his tie from around his neck and undoes the top three buttons on his shirt. Then he asks, “Ty?”

“Go to bed, Div,” Tyler says, barely able to get his voice above a whisper. After a second, Div nods, kicking off his shoes, unbuttoning his shirt the rest of the way. Tyler crawls backwards on the bed, shoving an unconscious Cameron onto the other half, and wraps his arms around one of the pillows. After another few seconds, the bathroom light switches off.

He hears Divya climb under the covers of the opposite bed. It’s quiet for a moment before Div’s voice comes across, “You think we’re going to win?”

Tyler rolls onto his back and stares up at the ceiling. “We have to.”

“You... you really believe that?”

Cameron mumbles something in his sleep and flops sideways, his hand coming to rest on Tyler’s hip. Tyler closes his eyes and murmurs, “We’ll make it right, Div.”

*

“Back at two-thirty,” Gage announces, and the lawyers all swarm from the room while Tyler continues to try and kill Mark Zuckerberg with his mind. But Zuckerberg just glares back, then pushes away from the table and follows his lawyers out.

“Remind me again why we waited to sue,” Divya says, leaning back in his chair and staring up at the ceiling.

“Because,” Tyler replies, remembering it perfectly, “Cameron through it would make us look like entitled douchebags to sue some... some _scholarship sophomore_.”

Cameron slaps his pen down onto the table. “Don’t put this on me.”

Divya snorts, sitting up straight again. “You think those six months really made that much of a difference?”

“There’s a huge fucking difference between one school and a hundred and sixty schools.” Tyler points a finger at his brother. “Now who’s chasing who around the high school gym?”

Cameron bares his teeth, and Divya stands up in a hurry, muttering about lunch. Tyler barely hears the door slam as he flees the room.

“Cam,” he says in a low voice, wrapping his fingers tightly around Cameron’s wrist.

“Is there even an end to this?” Cameron makes an wide gesture, shaking off Tyler’s hand, glancing around the room. “Lawyers and - and depositions, and legal motions? Watching Zuckerberg smirk at us from the other side of the table?”

“You can’t want to quit.” Tyler feels slightly breathless with the sudden worry that Cameron will say he wants to withdraw the suit, give up on this.

“No. But I don’t want to spend another four years on it, either.”

Tyler wants to reassure him that it won’t. But he can’t, because he knows Mark Zuckerberg is a stubborn fucking bastard who will never capitulate on his own. So instead he says, “Me neither,” and pulls Cameron from the stifling boardroom and out into the cool Connecticut air.

*

Six months later, after what feels like endless hours of negotiations, Zuckerberg writes them a check that essentially buys ConnectU. It is possibly the most unsatisfying moment Tyler has ever experienced in his life, a fact he shouts at his brother and Divya once the door has closed behind Zuckerberg and the lawyers. He shoves the legal pad off the table onto the floor, yellow pages fluttering as he yells, “What the fucking hell was that?”

“That was Mark Zuckerberg paying us sixty-five million dollars and _still_ laughing straight in our faces,” Cam mutters. His hands are clenched tightly into pale fists, and he’s staring at the manila folder of documents that they had all just signed.

“You can just leave it on the table,” Gage had said, leaving the room with the rest of the lawyers. Fleeing, even.

Divya kicks one of the chairs. His face is the same ugly scowl that Tyler remembers from the night they’d discovered Zuckerberg had stolen their website. “You should have let me beat him with the goddamed hammer.”

Tyler closes his eyes for a moment, imagining it. It’s more satisfying than the actual settlement. Then one of Gage’s assistants knocks on the door, wearing a coat and holding her briefcase. “We’re finished here,” she says. “Shut the door when you leave.”

Cameron scrubs his hands over his face, hissing, “Sixty. Five. Million. Dollars.”

“This isn’t fucking over.”

Div taps the folder. “It’s over, Ty. You’ve got other things to worry about now.”

Tyler takes a deep breath, unsure how to express the fact that in this very second, he can’t bring himself to worry about anything else. “Don’t you feel like this is personal?” he asks Divya. “Don’t you feel like he’s been laughing at us since the beginning, and that his settlement is just to get rid of us, not him admitting that he’s wrong?”

“Of course I do. But it’s over. It’s time to move on. It’s time for you and Cam to make that last push for Beijing, and it’s time for me to go back to work.” Divya slides his chair back from the table and stands up.

Tyler watches Cameron’s fists clench. “It’s not over,” Cameron says.

Divya picks up his briefcase. “It is for me. Whatever you guys choose to do from here on out...” He shrugs, swinging the leather strap over his shoulder. “That’s up to you. But I’m done with Zuckerberg and his stupid fucking website.”

At the doorway, he pauses, his hand curled around the edge of the wood. Tyler meets his gaze and gives him a sad half-smile. Div returns it, saying, “Call me if you make the team, all right? I’ll come out. I’ve never been to Beijing.”

Cam still seems frozen with rage, staring at nothing. Tyler nods for both of them. “Have a safe trip,” he tells Divya.

It sounds hollow and worthless; this guy has been their closest friend for years but Tyler can’t come up with anything better to say. He wants to say he’s sorry. He’s not entirely sure what for.

Div holds his gaze for a long moment. Then he nods, once, and leaves. Suddenly the room feels huge and empty, and Tyler realizes he feels alone.

“Cam,” he forces himself to say, “we should go.”

Cameron shakes his head. Tyler puts a hand on the back of his neck and squeezes, murmuring, “Come on. You want to hit the gym? You’ll feel better.”

It’s worked in the past. He’s not sure if it will this time. Underneath his palm, he can feel the tension in Cam’s body. It’s still gathering. Then Cameron tips forward with a groan, resting his forehead on the table.

“I know how you feel,” Tyler mutters.

Cam sighs. “Fuck.”

“Yeah.” He drops his hand and pushes his chair back, carefully, because he’s worried if he doesn’t control himself, something might get smashed. He stands up, buttoning his jacket. “You think we can get out of here before I break something?”

“Yeah.” Cameron gets up as well, picking up the pad of paper and their pens. “Let’s go back to New York tonight,” he says as he shoves everything into his bag. “I don’t think I can stand to be in this town another goddamned minute.”

They’re the last people left in the office, and the guard downstairs at the desk barely glances up as they pass. Their footsteps echo loudly in the cavernous lobby. Tyler hears Cameron’s long exhale as they shoulder open the main doors and step out into the night.

Divya’s still there, standing on the steps. He turns as Tyler comes up behind him. “Hey.”

“Hey. You waiting for us?”

“If you guys were going back to the city tonight, I figured I could catch a ride?”

“Sure.”

“You know, technically, we won here.” Div’s gaze flicks from him to Cameron and back again. Then he asks, his voice soft, “You guys okay?”

Tyler shrugs. He looks at his brother, who rolls his eyes. Tyler can tell his thoughts have already moved somewhere other than here. He tries to let go of it as they walk towards the car. What had happened today - it hadn’t made things right, not in the way he’d wanted, but it was done. He feels sort of like they’d medaled, but not like they had actually won. A hollow victory. Useless without the acknowledgement that they’d been the ones to invent Facebook.

He digs the car keys from his coat pocket, his mind turning to practice tomorrow. The Olympics are drawing closer, no longer just a dream far off on the horizon, but a concrete, obtainable goal. If there’s one thing that Tyler doesn’t doubt, it’s his and Cameron’s ability to do the work, blisters be damned.

The car chirps as he unlocks it. He looks at Cam, and Cam says,“We’re fine, Div. We have to be.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks go to stolemyslumber and willowbell for their betas and read-throughs. This was yet another one of those stories that started as one thing, then changed, and then changed again. I think I have a problem where I can't write anything happy in this fandom. At all.


End file.
